Loock Galerie is pleased to present in its showroom the series P2 (Berlin-Lichtenberg, Livingroom of a residential block) by Sibylle Bergemann. It is exhibited in dialogue with black and white photography on the subject of architecture and society.

In 1967, Sibylle Bergemann (born in 1941 in Berlin - died in 2010 in Margaretenhof) started to work as a freelance photographer in Berlin. She made numerous photo reportages, fashion shoots, and portrait series for art and culture magazines in the GDR, such as Sonntag and Sibylle. After Germany’s unification, she worked for magazines like GEO, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Stern, and The New York Times Magazine. For Sibylle Bergemann, photography was both a professional medium and an artistic and documentary means of expression. In addition to fashion and portrait photographs, situative and scenic photographs, and Polaroids, Bergemann also took on various commissions such as her famous documentary series Das Denkmal (1975-1986) about the Marx-Engels monument.

The series P2 shows the different interior furnishings of the same prefabricated apartment block in Berlin-Lichtenberg. “P2” stands for a series of apartment buildings developed in the early 1960s by the Institut für Hochbau [Institute for Construction] at the Bauakademie. It redefined living spaces with open floor plans. The use of pre-tensioned concrete made it possible to have floor plans without load-bearing walls. The slabs were industrially fabricated and then mounted. In a short time, apartments were constructed fast and at low cost. The new floor plan, which did not separate the kitchen from the living space, also helped to open up the traditional gender roles of women and men. The woman was no longer isolated in the kitchen, and the man was encouraged to do his share of the housework.

The ten P2 interior photographs that Bergemann took between 1974 and 1981 are complemented by a selection of black-and-white photographs of urban space and contemporary architecture from various Berlin neighborhoods, such as Springpfuhl (Berlin, 1980) and Volkspark Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin, 1978).